‘Public Prosecution barred from prosecuting two sitting MPs’

25/04/2018

KUWAIT CITY, April 24: The Court of Appeal affirmed that the Public Prosecution is barred from prosecuting two sitting MPs, Jamaan Al-Harbash and Nayef Al-Mirdas, until their immunity is lifted by the Parliament. The two lawmakers are among 21 citizens, including former and current parliamentarians accused of repeating the infamous speech, ‘enough frivoling’, made by former MP Musallam Al-Barrak.

Earlier, the Criminal Court imposed three years suspended jail sentence and fine of KD 2,000 on each defendant for allegedly repeating the infamous speech, which according to the judiciary, is deemed offensive to the entity of His Highness the Amir of Kuwait.

It is worth mentioning that former MP Musallam Al-Barrak served jail term of two years with hard labor for the same offense, while all other defendants are denying charges leveled against them in this respect. The controversial speech was made at Erada Square, and the Public Prosecution has urged the court to issue the toughest punishment against the defendants, which is five years imprisonment with hard labor.

Meanwhile, the Court of Appeals overturned the verdict issued by the Court of First Instance which sentenced a pharmacist to seven-year imprisonment.

It instead refrained from penalizing the defendant who was accused of kidnapping his son from his divorced wife’s custody, and then travelling abroad for studies. The Public Prosecution charged the pharmacist with kidnapping his son from his divorced wife with the intention of severing ties between the son and his mother who had custody of him, as per the investigation report.

Representing the defendant was lawyer Zaid Al-Khabbaz who said his client did not have any criminal intent in his actions and that he denied the charges from the start. He revealed that his client had reached an agreement with his ex-wife to take their son overseas so that the latter can study in better schools, adding that his client’s main intention was to provide better education for his son, but the intention of his ex-wife was revenge.